Annoyed? Don’t Blame the Market
September 1, 2013 Updated October 18, 2023
How would you feel if you'd waited months for that perfect trade? You know, that "no-brainer" of a trade with explosive reward potential... only to have been given the set-up, traded it and got stopped out for breakeven or, worse still, a loss a few days later?
It may feel like a massive injustice...but what would you do?
1. Blame the market and the thousands of participants in it?
2. Throw your laptop out of the window?
3. Phone a friend?
4. Or... simply go into a fit of spitting rage?
However tempting all of the above may seem, simply blaming the market is not a long-term solution to dealing with what may seem like a "problem". Frankly, it's not. It's disempowering and hardly constructive...but a lot of people do it and this is very much to their detriment.
Do you know what the best possible thing to do would be in the face of such adversity? Do nothing! Yes, that's right...absolutely nothing! Simply accept that the market can do anything at anytime. This is something amateur traders struggle to grasp, very much to their deteriment.
Yes, they are completely random and chaotic! And they most certainly don't care about who you are, what you do, where you're from or how good your trade set-up is. The market will just do "it's thing" regardless. So please don't take it personally, whatever you do.
Whether the market moves in favour of your trade or not, they will always be right. But guess what! The good news is that we don't need to be in order to be a profitable trader. With no crystal ball, we technical traders simply play the probabilities...in our favour.
Seeing sense in chaos
Rather than blame the market, we can rationalise by sticking to our profitable strategy by employing effective risk management knowing that if we get the trade wrong we only lose 1% of the value of our trading account - after all, we risk no more than this per trade. But if we get it right, we can make far more than we stand to lose if we get it wrong as we go for trades with a 3:1 reward/risk profile - risking 1% of our trading account in pursuit of 3% potential gain.
Sometimes we get it right and make it money, sometimes we get it wrong a lose money... if it's neither of these we at least can enjoy the 'stale mate' of a breakeven outcome (which, of course, is better than losing money!). That's trading!
Conclusion
But from getting rid of an emotional attachment to the outcome of your trade and the money that can be made or lost, you will be one major leap forward in transforming what is often experienced by many traders as a stressful and emotionally charged experience into a peaceful, carefree hobby.